


Skype

by Dardrea



Series: Fluffy Hiatus Sunday Ficlets [3]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV), Rumbelle - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Hiatus Sunday Fluff 2014 - 2015
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-10
Updated: 2015-01-10
Packaged: 2018-03-06 18:22:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3144065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dardrea/pseuds/Dardrea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not my favorite, but I am determined to do this...one fluffy ficlet a week until Once is back, no matter what and not counting the actual stories I'm working on. This one ended up a lot longer than the other two...I think because I kept hoping it would turn into what I wanted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Skype

Belle sighed again, as she stared sleeplessly up at the ceiling of the master bedroom in the big pink house.

New York didn’t seem so very far away. It was only a bit over 400 miles or so—she’d checked. They’d been separated before by greater distances and by things far greater than any physical distance.

Giving up, she rolled over onto her side and closed her eyes and reached for his pillow, pulling it close and wrapping her arms around it, seeking some substitute for his body next to hers. It had his scent, of shampoo and aftershave and the indefinable smell of his skin.

If she kept her eyes closed and tried not to think and breathed deeply for a while she might be able to get to sleep. She had an early day at the library tomorrow, starting with a meeting with the city council about the library’s budget.

Her phone chimed with a text message just as she was starting to think she might be drifting off and she scrambled to answer it with such haste she wound up hopelessly tangled her in sheets and almost fell off the bed reaching for the cell phone on her nightstand.

_Hey. I imagine you’ve already gone to bed…_

_No!_  She texted as quickly as she could, tapping and erasing and searching for punctuation, annoyed as she continued to be by the intricacies of modern ‘conveniences.’ _I_   _was hoping I’d hear from you but it got so late I thought you must have gone to bed yourself._

_Without at least saying ‘goodnight’ and ‘I love you’ to my lovely wife? Never. If you don’t mind though, now that we know that both of us are awake, perhaps we can skype?_

She laughed, feeling oddly shy at the thought of talking to him over the computer the way Henry had showed them in the days before the trip—though she reached eagerly for the laptop she’d left on the nightstand under her phone.

If it wasn’t for her meeting with the city council she’d have joined him on his business trip, as they’d originally planned.

When they’d found out she couldn’t go with him he’d tried to insist on cancelling the whole thing but as much as they’d both been looking forward to an actual honeymoon away from their home in Storybrooke, the impetus for this journey had always been a convention for antique dealers and a series of important auctions being held in New York City and she couldn’t let him cancel the trip he’d been planning for two months just because she couldn’t go.

Besides, as she’d told him, it just meant they could plan another trip, and this one would be an actual honeymoon, with no purpose to it but for them to be together.

 _Please!_  she texted back, the laptop already booted up and logging on to skype.

Almost instantly the computer started beeping at her with the tones of an incoming skype call that she quickly answered. She was much better with the computer than cell phones.

Her world settled into place as his face appeared on the screen, slightly pixilated and a little jerky but unquestionably her Rumpel. The knot that had coiled itself up in her stomach when he’d left for the airport earlier finally eased. It was their first time really apart since the wedding and considering all they’d been through prior, the parting had been hard on both of them.

“Hey,” she greeted him softly, still feeling unaccountably shy.

“Hey.” His warm voice soothed her, his accent and the lovely deepness of it and the sweetness in it that was all for her. She touched the screen, running her finger over the flat image of his cheek, trying to pretend that 400 miles really wasn’t anything at all.

For a moment his eyes fluttered closed as if he could feel the caress.

“I’ve missed you,” she said, as though she hadn’t just seen him off a matter of hours before—and she pulled a face.

He laughed softly. A happy, surprised sound. “I miss you too. I’m glad you’re still awake.”

“Me too,” she said, and meant it. “How was your flight?”

He rolled his eyes, leaning back on the hotel bed and adjusting his own laptop. The pillows seemed plump and the comforter he reclined on looked thick and warm. “The flight went well enough. The airport was as bad as I’d feared. I don’t know why anyone flies anywhere in this world. Traveling—even a great distance—hardly seems worth the hassle of going through security. You know they make you take your shoes off?”

She giggled. “Yes, Rumpel, you’ve mentioned that at least once a day for the last week. It was still just as horrible?”

He grinned as he nodded, his hair shifting with the movement of his head and leaving her hands itching to comb it back from his face. “It certainly was,” he said, not quite able to recapture the old cynicism in his tone when his eyes danced for her.

“And the hotel room? It looks nice.”

“Och, Belle.” He leaned his head back dramatically against the pillows for a moment before straightening to gaze into his webcam again. “The flight was a  _delight_  compared to the mess when I got to the hotel—that’s why it took me so long to text you. They lost my reservation and then said they’d already rented all their rooms.”

“Oh, no!” she said. “What did you do?”

 “I convinced some ‘very nice’ people that it was in their best interests to try harder to find me a room. And eventually they succeeded.” The slow, sweet curve of his mouth gave away his satisfaction that he was still a man who could get things done, even without the threat of magical consequences.

She smiled.

“Wait, let me show you the room,” he said, with the flash of an eager grin, turning the computer around so the built-in webcam could sweep over the small but luxurious space. The rich furnishings and tasteful colors would have fit in perfectly in his own showroom of a house. Clearly they hadn’t just found him any old room.

“Very nice,” she said.

“And I haven’t even showed you the best part!” He unplugged his power cord and the view through the camera spun dizzyingly as he clambered up off the bed and opened a glass sliding door, letting himself out onto a balcony. He turned the laptop so the camera could look out over the city around him, all colorful flashing lights and cars and so many people on the sidewalks even so late that just seeing it all made her feel as provincial as she’d once been called.

It was breathtaking and made her sigh a little wistfully. She wasn’t even certain she really wanted to honeymoon in New York since he’d pointed out she could choose anywhere she wanted, but she still wished she could see it in person with him.

“I’d’ve called earlier but it took them so long to get me a room and I didn’t want to worry you, calling before things were arranged.”

He took the laptop back to the bed to resettle himself and plug the laptop back in.

“I shouldn’t keep you up, though. Your meeting with the town council—”

“Please, Rumpel?” she whispered. “I’m not sure I can sleep without you here. I feel so…restless.”

There was a long silence from the computer and a tender expression on his pixilated face. “I’m here, Belle,” he said. “What can I do?”

She set the laptop down on his side of the bed, rolling onto her side again so she could easily watch him on the screen while she snuggled into her sheets and covers, wrapping her arms around his pillow, cold again since she’d left it to talk to him on the laptop. “Tell me a story?”

He scoffed. “A story?”

She nodded, feeling younger than her years and a little lost. They’d been apart for so long. She really hadn’t been ready to part from him again so soon after their marriage. “Yes,” she said firmly. “I like listening to you. It makes me happy.”

It was his turn to sigh, though he smiled. She didn’t like to be needy but she knew sometimes he appreciated the reminder that even in this world without magic there were things only he could give her. “Very well.”

He settled himself back against the hotel pillows and cleared his throat. He’d taken off his jacket and tie but he was still wearing his dress shirt, slacks, and vest, though he’d unbuttoned his shirt part of the way and the deep vee reminded her of his fancy outfits in the Enchanted Forest.

“Once upon a time there was a poor spinner, who lived with his son on the outskirts of a town not far from the war-torn borderlands—”

Belle sighed happily and listened to his story— _their_  story unfold.


End file.
